Just installed Nadia Cinnamon 64-bit on a brand-new Lenovo Z580 (quad-core i5, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD). I have turned off UEFI in BIOS settings. Everything I can find is set to legacy.
Grub menu comes up fine and works as expected.

Am experiencing extreme boot-up times. From power on to login screen takes over 20 mins (measured by digital watch). No Mint logo visible till just before boot completes.
The machine does not do this on the Nadia 32-bit Cinnamon (60 seconds boot time, approx). Naturally I want 64-bit to work so the full 8 GB gets used.

This machine is to be given to a beginner, so I would like to fix this before I hand the machine over.

nelz wrote:Turn of the splash screen so you can see the boot process and where it is stopping. Press E at the Grub menu, remove "splash silent" from the boot options and press Ctrl-X.

Latest: I tried turning off "quiet splash" in Grub. This gave me nothing, no boot messages, just a blank screen.
Then I tried booting in "compatibility mode", got messages, the hang occurs at "Begin: preconfiguring network".

But don't bother answering, I've given up on 64-bit and have installed 32-bit, which is working as expected.